{"id":314557,"date":"2026-03-05T16:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314557\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T16:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:40:08","slug":"ppta-warns-booming-rolls-and-immigration-fuelling-teacher-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314557\/","title":{"rendered":"PPTA warns booming rolls and immigration fuelling teacher shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Education Minister Erica Stanford told Newstalk ZB that vacancies earlier this year<\/a> weren\u2019t fulltime roles.<\/p>\n

She said the Ministry of Education\u2019s Teacher Demand and Supply report<\/a> provides a clearer picture of the situation.<\/p>\n

The annual forecast released last week shows a surplus of 530 primary teachers this year, but a shortfall of 710 in secondary schools.<\/p>\n

The latter figure is up from last year\u2019s estimate of 550.<\/p>\n

PPTA president Chris Abercrombie said the union has struggled for years to get officials to acknowledge there is a shortage<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He said Associate Education Minister David Seymour told Parliament a few months ago there were only 31 fulltime teaching vacancies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous that the information is so out of date and wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t fix the issue until we actually know what the issue is. And we\u2019ve got a Government who says by 2028 we\u2019ll only need 200 secondary teachers \u2013 and [thinks] that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abercrombie said a range of factors contributed to vacancy numbers rising in the middle of Term 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo school I\u2019ve visited recently has had a falling roll. Most are either stable or significantly increasing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne school told me they had 25 students arrive at the start of the year unexpectedly, so they weren\u2019t predicted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Booming immigration has also led to many schools, particularly in Auckland, hitting or surging above capacity. <\/p>\n

Last year, Newstalk ZB revealed 88% of state schools<\/a> are at or above classroom utilisation rates.<\/p>\n

Abercrombie said immigration also significantly impacts rural areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve visited schools where 30% of the student population is Filipino migrant students. It\u2019s awesome but it can add pressure because it is often unexpected arrivals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said more senior students<\/a> are staying at school because of a lack of employment opportunities and changes to the polytech system, which also affects staffing numbers. Housing developments are another factor.<\/p>\n

Abercrombie recalled visiting a school in Auckland experiencing rapid roll growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I asked why, the principal pointed across the road \u2013 a single family home had been replaced with five or six townhouses. So there\u2019s a lot of guesswork from schools to try to manage this space, and sometimes that\u2019s why we have these last-minute appointments being made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaime Cunningham is a Christchurch-based reporter with a focus on education, social issues and general news. She joined Newstalk ZB in 2023 after working as a sports reporter at the Christchurch Star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Education Minister Erica Stanford told Newstalk ZB that vacancies earlier this year weren\u2019t fulltime roles. She said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,95,170774,12509,81654,2841,9881,19060,266,226,917,56387,111,43,139,69,56265,25259,312,2242,14182,2553,7574,18843,4483,8218,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-314557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-across","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-booming","11":"tag-capacity","12":"tag-classrooms","13":"tag-country","14":"tag-facing","15":"tag-fuelling","16":"tag-government","17":"tag-growing","18":"tag-immigration","19":"tag-isnt","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-ppta","25":"tag-rolls","26":"tag-says","27":"tag-secondary","28":"tag-shortage","29":"tag-stretched","30":"tag-teacher","31":"tag-teachers","32":"tag-union","33":"tag-warns","34":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}